sightseeing

A Stroll round my Village

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Hello!  No knitting today, I’m afraid. I ran into a problem with the sweater I’m knitting for our daughter and ripped back quite a bit. I’m working on a solution and hope to tell you about it next week.

Instead, I’m taking you for a stroll round my village. It isn’t the village I now live in, but the Frisian village of Grou, where I grew up and that still feels very much like my village. It is also the village of the famous Frisian doctor, poet and storyteller Eeltsje Halbertsma.

He wrote in 1856, “ik beëagje neat mei myn skriuwen, as om myn Fryske lânsljuwe in noflike pear oeren te besoargjen.” (I have no other aim with my writings than to give my Frisian compatriots a few pleasant hours.) That’s my aim for today, too, only in my case it is people anywhere and minutes rather than hours.

We’re approaching the village centre through a narrow alley. In the second house on the left the friend who taught me finger crochet used to live, and on the right was the baker’s where we spent our pocket money on sweets.

This is the main street, where I have some shopping to do.

And this is the front door of the shop I’m taking you to. It used to be the police station, but now it’s a yarn shop (where else would I take you?).

With its new glass roof it is now a beautifully light space. No yarn shop is the same and every yarn shop reflects the taste of the person running it. In this case a very cheerful and colourful taste.

In the workshop space a beginner crochet workshop has just ended. Crochet seems to be more popular now than ever before.

Unfortunately, I can’t show you what I bought. It’s something very nice, but it’s a birthday present for a friend who’ll be reading this and I want to keep it a surprise.

Now, let’s walk on to the end of the shopping street. A tiny garden shed, an antiques shop and a gate.

And behind the gate the 13th century church. In the 1970s a new minister arrived. A hippie from Amsterdam, with a long beard and long hair. He introduced a circle of meditation benches into the church, where we kneeled and sang Dona nobis pacem, pacem, dona nobis pacem. Give us peace, peace, give us peace……………………………………….

Today’s stroll ends by the lake that seemed enormous to me as a child.

My village has changed in many ways, but many things have stayed the same, too. In the same spot where they have always been, there are still einekuorren (traditional nesting places for ducks).

It’s a lovely time of year for a stroll, with tulips flowering around the Eeltsje Halbertsma bust and kingcups along the waterside. I hope you’ve enjoyed it and I hope to see you again next week. Bye!

A Trip to Kampen

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Well, I was a tad too optimistic last week about finishing a wee Norwegian sweater. There is no news on the knitting front, and I hope you’ll enjoy a trip to Kampen instead. It’ll be cold and wet, so wrap up warmly and bring an umbrella! We’re walking to the old town centre through the park and one of the three city gates.

It can get quite busy here with tourists in summer, but today it’s just the locals and us. We could go on a guided tour, visit a museum or the cigar factory, but we’re not doing any of that. We’re just here for some shopping and a stroll.

The medieval town hall is very impressive, and there are many other interesting monuments. But what I like even more are the narrow alleys leading off the main shopping street.

One of the nice things about Kampen is that it has many small independent shops. Some of our favourites are the cheese shop, the Italian delicatessen and De Swaen with its handmade chocolates.

I know that some of you are quilters as well as knitters, and thought you might like to visit the quilt shop. The owner writes an inspiring blog, too. I don’t know how she does it – running the shop on her own, being a mum of four, blogging and making beautiful quilts. I’ll just let you browse on your own before we walk on to the river IJssel.

Ah, there you are again. Did you enjoy that? Now, let’s get some fresh air and take a walk along the river. The boats that will be sailing with groups of passengers later in the year are all at home.

Oh, we’re lucky! The Kogge (the replica of a medieval cargo ship) is here, too. Compared to today’s freight ships it’s tiny.

I don’t know about you, but I feel chilled to the bone. Time for some tea or coffee in the restaurant with the swan over the door.

And some sweet treats to go with it. I hope you’ve enjoyed our trip to Kampen. Next week I really hope to have some knitting to talk about. See you then!

Better Button Bands

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Hello! Today’s post starts with a few nifty knitting tips that some of you will love. If that’s not quite your thing, perhaps you’d like to scroll on for some sightseeing.

The green cable cardigan I knit for our grandson in early summer had warned me about the quality of the patterns in the pattern booklet – there were serious errors in the instructions for the sleeves. I loved the vintage look of the baby items in it, though, and was prepared to give it another try.

Forewarned, I looked through the pattern first. What did it say about the sleeves? ‘Work as the sleeves of sweater 11, p. 57.’ But, but… this IS sweater 11 on p. 57! Ugh, I gave up, just looked at the photos and worked out a pattern myself.

On the green cable cardi, I wasn’t happy with the ends of the button and buttonhole bands – they didn’t form a straight line with the ribbing.

At the time, my friend A. sent me a link with tips for ‘Button Band Gladness’. There was a lot there about how many stitches to pick up, but I didn’t think that was my problem. For me the magic tip came at the very end. Or actually there were two:

1) Find that hard-to-find place VERY close to the edge of the cast-on (or bind-off) to pick up your first (or last) stitch.

2) The first and last stitch of ribbing always roll. So for a k1, p1 rib, instead of starting and ending with one knit stitch, start and end with two.

Especially the last tip helped me get much better button bands, both at the bottom…

… and at the top. Thank you for the link, A.!

However much I would have liked to sew a pair of trousers to go with the little cardi, I can’t do everything. So, after an appointment in a business district of Zwolle, I drove to the city centre for some shopping. The shortest route from the parking place to the shops crosses two canals. My maternal ancestors lived and worked on boats like these.

Behind the old gables some high new ones are now towering.

A long time ago, I worked in a psychologists’ practice here and often strolled through the busy shopping streets during my lunch break. I still love coming here from time to time. One of my favourite shops belongs to a Danish retail chain selling things for the home as well as great crafts materials. Wouldn’t you love to have shelves like these at home, with glass jars filled with ribbons, just to look at?

Into my shopping basket went a tin of Danish butter cookies for the hostess of the next get-together of my knitting group and a few other small gifts.

I treated myself to a lunch of pumpkin soup with bread rolls and a glass of fresh ginger-and-orange tea at the café in a big book shop.

It’s a marvellous shop in a former church building. The original vaulted ceiling and the organ are still there.

But the old familiar feeling of overwhelm came over me and I left the shop without books. I did succeed in finding a pair of soft size 98 sweat pants in forest green (not in the book shop, obviously). Don’t they look nice with the sand-coloured cardi?

Next week, we’re having friends to stay and I don’t know if I’ll be able to write a post. If not next week, I’ll be back the week after that. See you then!

Oh, the Places Knitters Go!

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Hello! It’s good to be back here. Maybe you haven’t even noticed I’ve been away, but we’ve been on a late summer holiday to Germany. We spent the first half in the Mosel region, and the second half in the Eifel. Above a photo of the view on the river Mosel from our balcony, and below our first holiday home from the outside:

In my dreams, that is. In real life this is Reichsburg Cochem. And in real life we stayed in a far humbler (but lovely) abode. In real life, this was what I looked out on when I sat knitting outside our cottage.

I didn’t knit all that much during our holiday, though. Partly because we were out walking and visiting places most of the time, and partly because it was so hot that the yarn almost felted in my hands. A few rows on a scarf here and there, and half a sock was all I knit.

Halfway through the holiday, I celebrated my birthday. We had some of the famous and delicious German Kuchen, of course. (The Germans are so much better at baking cakes than we Dutch are.) And I also got to decide what we were going to do the rest of the day. I chose a visit to another castle and… a yarn shop (what else?). This is Schloss Bürresheim.

The castle is entered through a kind of tunnel that leads to a courtyard with an outdoor summer kitchen. It’s very special, like being in a film.

Actually it is in a film. In an edited form, it is the castle where Indiana Jones’ father is held captive in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Now, let’s drive on to the yarn shop. It’s Die Kleine Wollfabrik in Kaisersesch. My guess is that tourists are a rarity in this town. It’s 30 ˚ C/86 ˚ F, with glaring sunlight and noise and dust from building activities in a colourless street. Oh, the places we knitters go! For a moment I wonder ‘what on earth am I doing here?’, and then step inside a world of colour.

There is yarn everywhere. In overflowing baskets…

… in cubbyholes, on shelves, on the floor…

… on top of storage units and in front of the windows. These skeins were dyed by the shop owner herself:

And there is also quite a bit of spinning fibre.

So, is this yarn shop worth a detour? If you’re looking for yarn for a sweater – frankly no. There is very little of that kind of yarn here. But if you’d like some yarn for socks or a shawl – absolutely. Be prepared for a kind of yarn jungle expedition, though. You’d be wise to have some kind of idea of what you’re looking for beforehand.

From all of the very colourful yarns, I chose several rather quiet ones for three pairs of socks to give away, and a variegated yarn for a pair for me. All of them yarns I haven’t knit with before – I’ll tell you more about them when I get round to knitting them up.

After all of the beautiful places we’ve been to, it’s good to be back home. In a sense, I’m a cow. Not the nicest thing to say of oneself perhaps, but what I mean is: I need time to chew things over. After ingesting lots of grass/impressions, both cows and I need some quiet time to digest everything. Sifting through my photographs and writing about my experiences helps me do that.

Thank you for reading. I hope to digest/write about a visit to another textiles-related place next week before getting back to my ordinary knitting chat. Hope to see you then!

The Story of the Drowned Village

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Hello! Today, I’m going to tell you a story. A story about a lake that wasn’t always a lake, a path that leads nowhere, and a drowned village.

‘Show, don’t tell,’ isn’t that what aspiring writers are always taught? Well, I’ll do better than that – I’ll show AND tell. Look, this is where we start – a narrow brick path, with old reed-roofed cottages on one side…

… and a flower garden and more tiny cottages on the other.

One of the cottages is now a tearoom. Maybe we can have a cuppa there later.

This used to be the path to the village of Beulake, but now it leads nowhere. Well, not quite nowhere – it ends at the water’s edge and brings us to the boat I’ve rented especially for us today. Please hop in. To get to the lake we need to negotiate a narrow canal first.

And here we are, on the Beulakerwijde – the lake that wasn’t always a lake. We’re not the only ones enjoying a lovely day out on the water.

It’s hot and sunny today, with a gentle breeze. Very different from that fateful day in November 1776, when rain and wind lashed the countryside.

Extensive peat extraction had made the area around Beulake vulnerable and a year earlier a heavy storm had broken the sea dykes in several places, flooded the land and driven away most of the inhabitants of the village. This time the storm was even worse. Fearing for their lives, the remaining 50 villagers fled to the church. They experienced the worst 36 hours of their lives, but survived to tell the tale. The village was drowned, however, and the entire area became a lake – the lake we’re on today.

The church disappeared in another storm, fifty years later, and… But wait, what’s that there in the distance?

It looks like, no, it can’t be, yes it is a… church tower???

A church tower complete with a bell and clockwork!

Well, actually it’s an artwork approximately in the spot where the original church of Beulake was. The small, uninhabited island behind it is called Kerkhof (church yard). It’s not hard to guess why.

The story of the drowned village of Beulake is the story behind one of the two versions of my Story Lines shawl.

The photographs were taken here, and I’ve been wanting to tell you the story behind it for a long time, but somehow never got round to it.

There is also a red version with ruffles along the edge, but the watery blue version ends with a row of droplets.

Well, it’s time to head back, along the reedbeds and water lilies.

We’re lucky – the tearoom is still open. Do you have time to stay a little longer? What would you like? Coffee, fresh mint tea, an alcohol-free beer? And carrot cake, a brownie or a slice of Dutch apple pie to go with it?

The Story Lines pattern can be found here on Ravelry and the blog post about both versions of the shawl here.

Our boat trip started from Natuurmonumenten visitor centre De Wieden. (Natuurmonumenten is the nature conservation organisation that protects and manages the beautiful and vulnerable wetland area of today’s story.)

Follow the Blue Line

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Hello! Usually my writings are about woolly things, but today it’s all about flax and linen. My husband and I followed flax trail Follow the Blue Line last Saturday, and I thought you might like to follow it with us.

The 30-kilometre-long trail covers everything from growing flax to processing it, and spinning and weaving it into linen. Let’s follow it in the order we did, and we’ll see everything along the way. So, where are we? Well, we’re in the northernmost part of Friesland, with its open agricultural landscape.

Before we moved to where we are now, we lived in this area for 15 years and it still feels very much like home. We’re starting in the village of Blije, at textile hand-printing studio Kleine Lijn. Nynke prints all kinds of designs on cotton, silk and linen. My eye is immediately drawn to her plant prints. The top of this post shows a print of flax stalks with seedheads on linen. Here is some more of her work:

We’ve been following the trail for at least 30 minutes now, so high time for some refreshments in the adjacent tea garden, with its lovely mix of vintage furniture…

…and mismatched china.

Ready to continue the trail?

Before Nynke can print onto it, the linen she uses has a long way to go. It starts out as flax, a traditional crop in this region that is now making a come-back.

What I learnt on Saturday is that there are two kinds of flax: linen flax and oil flax. Linen flax has longer stalks to make longer fibres for spinning and weaving. And oil flax has shorter stems with more seed heads that produce more seeds for making linseed oil. There are several flax fields along the way and this is one of them:

In this field, most of the flax has finished flowering. But there are still a few of its lovely blue flowers to be seen.

Next stop: a potato farm with a high-tech farm shop. In addition to potatoes, fruit, veg and local tipples, it also has an unexpected product in its vending machine. More about that later in a separate post.

Now, let’s continue on to Mitselwier. Ah, the cool interior of the church makes a very nice change from the heat outside. There is a weaving exhibition inside, with demonstrations of weaving and flax spinning. Unlike wool, flax isn’t held on the spinner’s lap, but on a distaff. In the picture below, it is held in place with red ribbon.

The flax is pulled down from the distaff and spun into a thin linen thread.

The spinner frequently moistens her fingers with water while she is spinning. She tells me that after spinning, the thread is too sticky to be used for weaving straightaway. It needs to be bleached first – a process that involves covering the hanks of thread with hay, sprinkling that with wood ashes and then pouring boiling water over everything. Repeat that six times and the yarn is bleached. Phew, so much work!

Below from bottom to top: unspun flax fiber, spun linen thread and bleached linen thread.

Before we continue on to our final destination, it’s time for some cool, cool drinks and flax biscuits (with linseed).

A narrow lane brings us to flax museum It Braakhok in the village of Ie – on the right, where the Dutch flag is waving.

Here volunteers demonstrate how flax is processed to spinnable fibre.

I’m impressed by the number of steps and the amount of work it takes to make linen from flax.

Finally, we visit an exhibition about yet a different aspect of linen – its use for painting canvases. The exhibition tells us about a research project looking at the linen used by 17th -Century Dutch masters like Vermeer and Rembrandt.

It’s fascinating what linen can tell us about paintings and the artists who made them when it is examined and reconstructed using a 17th-Century weaving loom, X-rays and microscopes.

Flax trail Follow the Blue Line can be followed through early August. The exhibition Ontrafeld Bewijs (about the painters’ linen canvases) can be visited to September 30th. Admission to everything along the trail is free!

Next week, I hope to tell you about a yarn shop just a couple of kilometres outside the flax trail. I couldn’t very well pass that by when we were so close to it, could I? Hope to see you again then. Bye!

Unwinding

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Hello there! Here, in the Netherlands, many people take some time off work in the last week of April and the first week of May. With most schools closed, King’s Day on April 27th and Liberation Day on May 5th, it is a time for going to festivals or travelling. While everybody seemed to be having a great time, I was feeling grumpy. Like, everybody is having fun but me. Was I envious?

Well, yes and no. When I saw the crowds in the cities and at the airport on tv, I was happy I wasn’t among them. I didn’t mind missing out on the big events and didn’t particularly want to travel either. What I did want was some time to unwind, though. Only on a much smaller scale. So that’s what I’ve been doing over the past couple of weeks, and I’d like to share some of it with you.

One thing I’ve been doing is literally unwinding and re-winding yarn using my nøstepinne.

It’s a totally unnecessary thing to do, but for me very relaxing. Seeing a mini-skein or an unattractive looking leftover bit of sock yarn transform into a perfect little ball with a hole in the middle is just so satisfying.

Going for a walk or cycling are other great ways for me to unwind. (Thank you for joining me on last week’s wood anemone walk – I really appreciate your comments. Knowing that you are there and enjoy some of the same things inspires me to keep blogging.) We are very fortunate in where we live. Hopping onto my bicycle, I’m here in three minutes:

And even closer to home, I’ve been pottering around the garden, doing some weeding and taking a few photographs. In our herb patch, I found a blackbird’s egg – unfortunately not hatched.

(We’ve also found shells of eggs that did hatch, so not to worry.) Looking at flowers through the lens of my camera, I forget everything else.

Most of the things I did to unwind were close to home (or even at home) and took just a few minutes to an hour at most. But we also took an entire day off to visit a fair at Middachten Castle.

My husband lived close to the castle as a child and our daughter lived almost next-door for several years, so it feels a bit like home to us. Although it is a beautiful place, I’m glad it isn’t really our home, to be honest. I’d feel totally lost in a big place like this, and think of all the work involved! The house and gardens are closed until June, but just looking at them from the outside was still enjoyable.

The fair we’d come for was rather disappointing. I’d hoped to be able to buy a few gifts at the stalls, but didn’t see anything special. Apart from some spectacular bulbs of different varieties of garlic, that is.

But a bunch of garlic as a gift for a 20-year-old niece? Not, not quite what I was looking for. Fortunately we had enough time left to visit a few shops in nearby Zutphen. Ah, it’s such a lovely city – I’ll take you there for a longer visit again some other time. (An earlier post about it can be read here.)

I also spent quite a bit of time unwinding with my Seventh Heaven Scarf. It’s growing much faster than I thought. After the greens, I’m now deep into the blues (literally – after all the unwinding any figurative blues have lifted), knitting up some of my small nøstepinne-wound balls of yarn.

Well, that’s it for today. I hope you can find some time to unwind in your days, too, and hope to see you again next week!

Giethoorn Embroidery Samplers

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Hello!

Today, I’m taking you to the nearby village of Giethoorn again. We’ve visited several times before (here, here and here). Later in the year it’ll be teeming with tourists, but not yet.

Most cafés and shops are still closed. The museum is open, though, and that’s what matters because we’re here for the Embroidery Sampler Exhibition. I did not count them, but I think there are at least 40 and maybe even 50 local samplers on display, from 19th century ones to much more recent examples, and from simple school samplers…

… to very elaborate ones, using other embroidery techniques besides cross stitch as well. Here is one of those, with beautiful open seaming.

What strikes me in the Giethoorn embroidery samplers is that many of them are very personal, especially the later ones. Not just mentioning names and birth dates, but much more. Take the one below – there’s a whole life there: marriage, children, work, wartime memories, school and hobbies.

One of the embroiderers also seems to be a knitter. Interestingly, she doesn’t use cross stitch.

What I love most about the Giethoorn embroidery samplers is their local flavour. It’s not just that the word Giethoorn is embroidered on them, but they also have pictures of the traditional boats and the typical high bridges.

In the old centre, almost every house has its own bridge.

Some of the embroiderers have also included their homes in their samplers, in several cases even with the house number. Here is number 56.

I thought it would be fun to try and find the real house. It turned out to be close to the museum. The embroiderer has taken some artistic liberty with the number of windows, but you’ll recognize it straightaway.

Apart from this temporary embroidery exhibition, the museum shows us what life was like in Giethoorn around a century ago. Here is the front of the museum on one of the samplers.

Everything is there: the steps leading up to the front door, the chimney, the dormer window with its pointy top, the shutters and even the little window over the front door.

The Giethoorn sampler exhibition can be visited through mid-May. Information about the museum can be found on the museum website. For those of you living too far away, I hope you’ve enjoyed your virtual visit. For my Dutch readers: echt een bezoekje waard!

Looking for Something Simple

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Hello!

Drawing up my knitting wish list for 2023, I forgot one thing. There is lots of interest in it: Norwegian knitting, design projects, challenging socks etc. What I didn’t think of at the time was that I also need something simple alongside.

At the moment a pair of simple socks in a plain, solid navy blue is fulfilling this role. The only interesting thing about them is that they’re from a yarn I’ve never used before – Lamana ‘Merida’.

When these are finished I’d like to start on a simple wrap/scarf/stole again. Something endlessly rhythmic and soothing. Something like this huge stole in a wide knit-and-purl rib I knit several years ago (blog post here):

Something like this only slightly smaller Striped Linen Stitch Wrap I’ve enjoyed knitting so much (blogged about here):

In short, I am looking for something utterly simple – no shaping, no seaming, no complicated stitch patterns – that will take a long time to knit. But what? I thought a visit to my nearest serious yarn shop might help me find the answer. It is in the Frisian town of Joure, a 20-minute drive from our home.

Joure isn’t the first place that would come to mind if people from elsewhere were to ask me what to visit in this region. It is just a nice, ordinary town, but it does have a few lovely spots and buildings as well as an interesting-looking museum (that I have yet to visit).

Joure also has a lively shopping street, although it struck me this time that here, too, as in so many other towns there are quite a few empty shops. Brick-and-mortar shops seem to be struggling everywhere. Strolling through the town centre is still very enjoyable, though.

And here we are at the yarn shop – Ajoure. There is a spinning wheel and some unspun and undyed wool in the window.

And inside there are walls, tables, cupboards, boxes and baskets filled with yarn, yarn, yarn and more yarn.

Many beautiful and expensive yarns, and also many more ordinary and affordable ones. And yet I don’t find what I am looking for. Not the shop’s fault – it’s just me being vague and indecisive. I don’t consider my visit fruitless, though. I’ve seen several yarns I’ll keep in mind for future projects, just spending some time in Joure was lovely, and I also picked up a leaflet telling me that the fabulous wool and sheep festival Joure onder de wol will be held again this year, on Saturday May 13th. If you don’t live too far away, that’s really something to look forward to.

Meanwhile, I’ll keep looking for something simple to knit. Bye for now and hope to see you again soon!

PS. And what about the people at the top of this post? Why are they standing there in the middle of Joure’s shopping street, gazing up at the sky? Are they looking for inspiration, too? Well, actually they are not gazing up at the sky, but at this:

The recently restored church steeple from 1628.

Happy 2023!

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Gelukkig Nieuwjaar! May 2023 be filled with happiness for you and your loved ones. I hope you’ve had a great time over the Holidays and a good start to the New Year.

As for me, I spent part of the last day of the old year baking a big batch of knieperties (recipe here).

Keeping a few back for ourselves, I filled several bags with knieperties, closed them with cheerful ribbons, put them in a basket and distributed them among our neighbours. We don’t see much of each other at this time of the year, and it was nice to catch up on their news.

In exchange for the knieperties, some of them gave us home-made oliebollen and appelflappen. Yum!

When the clock struck 12 and the fireworks started, it was 15 ˚C (32 ˚F) – a nice temperature for a sunny day in May, not the middle of a night in December! Reading about the terrible snow storms and torrential rain some of you have had, I wish things could have been distributed a bit more evenly across the globe. I hope all is more or less back to normal now where you live.

Our Holiday break was uneventful, and I’ve been knitting quite a bit, finishing the Advent calendar mittens.

They were getting neater and neater as I went along – practice makes perfect (or at least improves skills). Taken together the backs make a lovely sampler of Norwegian colourwork that could be used for all kinds of other projects (description of how to download the pattern at the end of this post).

I’ve put them away now, moth-free in plastic, and made notes in my planner here and there to remind me of finding small gifts, poems and quotes to put inside. And especially to remind me of gifting them before December 1, 2023.

The life-size mittens I’ve also been knitting were less of a success, turning out a wee bit too small, and will have to be re-knit. More about those if/when I’ve found the courage to start anew.

Beside a few walks and a great family get-together, we also enjoyed a concert of a group of midwinter horn blowers. They called it An Ode to Peace through Connection.

It was great fun, seeing and hearing these strange traditional wooden horns, made by the players themselves.

The concert lasted all of 15 minutes, with each of the players doing a solo first, and finally all of them ‘making a lot of noise together’, as they themselves put it. The group has members aged from 7 to 70+ and each player has their own technique, resting the end of the horn on the ground or holding it high up in the air.

They’re an elusive bunch, these people, playing their horns from late November through the first week of January in a dozen or so villages around the area. Excepting this afternoon concert, you never know where they will pop up. Their announcements say: You’re most likely to hear us somewhere around 6 pm.

Did you notice the 2023 from buttons at the top? Well, I’ve also been rummaging through my button box. If I can get my act together, I’ll tell you more about that next week. Hope to see you then!

PS. If you’d like to hear the weird and wonderful sound of midwinter horns, there is a video on YouTube here. This isn’t ‘our’ group, but the sound is similar.